1    The Proper Preparation of Cassava Flour

Background

Cassava is an important staple food in tropical Africa. More than half of the world’s production by land area is located in sub-Sahara Africa, which accounts for over 40% of global production by volume. This quantity feeds nearly 200 million people.

Apart from traditional dishes, cassava flour also possesses a considerable and so far underexploited potential as an additive or even as a substitute to wheat, maize and other flours that are often imported. This booklet describes how the production of cassava flour can generate income and make the preparation of food cheaper and more diversified, thanks to improved processing techniques and new recipes. Time-saving ways of preparing food will be particularly attractive to women and urban dwellers who often have busy time-schedules.

Constraints of Traditional Cassava Flour

Cassava flour has for a long time played a major role in food preparation in the tropics. Frequently, however, traditional processing methods are not very efficient and flour quality is rather poor.

Traditional methods of flour production are rather tedious and time consuming. For example, peeling, soaking, cutting, drying and pounding are performed manually using knives, cutlasses, mortars and other tools. The drying process is a long one, because chips are rather large and irregular in shape. Depending on the weather conditions, and especially during the rainy season, drying may take up to three weeks as chips are simply left to dry on the ground. During rainfall the chips must be covered with a plastic sheet or collected and stored in a safe place. If this measure is neglected, chips may already deteriorate during the drying process. Furthermore, all this work is performed by women and is not very profitable.

The traditional method of preparing cassava flour often results in poor quality. The most significant problem is the high moisture content that may persist inside the chips after drying. This may reduce the storability of the flour and even encourage mould development.

Drying on the ground also contaminates the product with soil and dirt and makes it prone to insect attack, in addition to the health hazards posed by bacteria and mycotoxins from mould. On the other hand, proper drying is important in order to maintain good quality, which influences the marketability and price of the product.

Objectives

The objectives of producing cassava flour using improved technologies are to reduce the workload of the women involved in the process and to make it profitable, but also to improve flour quality and to reduce the health hazards posed by the consumption of unhygienic or spoilt flour. The introduction of new recipes will help diversify the range of dishes available.

The booklet is designed to help develop a time-consuming manual process into an efficient and profitable small-scale processing industry. In order to achieve this, the beneficiaries (e.g. women) should form self-help groups.

At the national level, anticipated benefits are improved self-sufficiency in staple food, less dependence on imported products, and increased export revenues through the marketing of cassava flour. Production, processing, transportation and sales also offer good opportunities for private-sector development.

Target Group

This booklet is designed primarily for extension workers and NGOs who assist the rural population. It can be used in participatory development programmes with families at the village level. It is important that the extension workers elaborate solutions jointly with those involved, in order to ensure feasibility and acceptance. Extension workers should also demonstrate the benefits by pointing out the potentials of income generation, and cleaner and more varied foods. Other actors should also be included in the meetings, such as the craftsmen who maintain the mills, so that information on shortcomings, problems and other experiences can be exchanged.

Women constitute an important beneficiary target group for the innovation proposed in this booklet, since they have long been responsible for cassava processing activities. The transition from a household task to a profitable economic activity will make cassava flour production appropriate for other target groups, too. Out-of-school youth groups and others should therefore not be neglected as target groups. However, the question of ownership requires special attention. Care must be taken to ensure that the introduction of advanced technologies by a women's group, and the prospect of making profits, does not lead to men who have not shown any previous interest in processing activities taking possession of the enterprise.